Thinking and Doing: An invitation to work with an innovative think thank and university of the year

Launching NCE|RSA Associates – a new way of connecting RSA Fellows and Nottingham Civic Exchange

Nottingham Civic Exchange is a place-based think tank with a civic remit. Built together with the RSA we help to turn academic ideas into practical action, engage our students in the work we undertake and ensure we are alive to the current issues and opportunities in our place.  We recognise we can’t achieve this alone. We work with colleagues, students and civic partners to deliver our work and tonight we are announcing an expansion to this network.

NCE|RSA Associates will formalise a way of connecting RSA Fellows and the Nottingham Civic Exchange. From the first open meeting about what Nottingham Civic Exchange could become, RSA Fellows were central. You offered practical and challenging ideas for us and helped to ensure that we became part of the response to the call for universities to take their civic role seriously.  You are members of a network of socially conscious individuals bound by the history and ethos of the RSA to improve society by turning ideas into action.  In January 2020, we want to welcome six NCE|RSA Associates to Nottingham Civic Exchange to work together on mutually beneficial activity.  You don’t have to be based in Nottingham but we will be focusing on activity that contributes to our current programmes of work on place, economic insecurity and good work. 

We want this to be a mutually beneficial opportunity helping you develop and grow. We also hope to benefit from your ideas, experience and networks. As an NCE|RSA Associate, you will have the opportunity to connect your work to NTU research and researchers, help co-host events and write blogs on topics we all care about, feed into our submissions to policy makers and develop joint projects engaging our students. We can offer you access to NTU’s library and digital resources to help in these joint projects

The Associate programme will run as a pilot for one year and we ask that you help us to evaluate how it has worked. To register your interest, we have a short Expression of Interest form, where we ask who you are, what you do and why you would like to join the programme.

We are hosting two information sessions (one online) at the end of the month to discuss this opportunity in more detail – book your place for the online event on 20th November or the in-person event on 28th November. And feel free to get in touch by phone or email at any time. We look forward to being in touch – we really want to hear about your ideas for how we can work together